Last Contact
by Leda74
Summary: Gwen is horrified when she encounters a familiar face in an unfamiliar setting. Set near the end of Series 1 but before Captain Jack Harkness.
1. Recognition

Gwen didn't wake until her mobile, vibrating across the bedside table, fetched up against her water glass and started to rattle its way through her skull. Hearing Rhys grunt softly in his sleep, she wrenched an arm out from beneath the duvet and grabbed for the phone before it could wake him, checking for the time on the bedside clock as she did so. 4.27am.

The display told her that Jack was calling. Punching the answer button, she lowered her voice and turned away from Rhys.

"What's happened?" she croaked. Several seconds slipped by before Jack responded.

"There's been a traffic accident," he said, his voice far too flat for comfort. "Junction of the A48 and Port Road."

"A traffic accident? What's that got to do with..."

"Just get here. Now," he cut across her and, that said, ended the call.

It took Gwen a few minutes to find her clothes; all she could locate, without making too much noise, were those she'd been wearing the previous night. As she was heading for the bedroom door, Rhys turned over and opened his eyes. She'd forgotten just how sweet he looked while he was half asleep.

"What's goin' on, love?" he murmured. She crossed the room on cats's feet and leaned down to brush her lips across his forehead.

"Just got to go to work. There's been an accident," she said, hoping he wouldn't ask her for any details she couldn't supply – which were, at that point, all of them.

Rhys nodded sleepily and burrowed back down under the duvet until she could see nothing but his tangled hair. Gwen stood a moment longer, listening to him breathing, wanting more than anything to be able to strip and crawl back into bed. Then, sighing softly, she left the room.

* * *

The roads were all but deserted, and she passed nothing but eighteen-wheelers along the way, until the approach to the roundabout on the A48, when she pulled over and stared in disbelief at the gathering that met her eyes. She counted at least five police vehicles nosed up against a hastily erected cordon, most of them left with their lights flashing. She couldn't see the SUV, but assumed it was somewhere around.

Clambering out into the pre-dawn mist, she wrapped her arms around her and approached the cordon. There were two policemen just beyond the tape; one was scratching something in a notebook, and the other appeared to be staring into the middle distance.

"Hello?" she called out, suddenly and painfully aware of the sound of her own voice, and wondering if she'd ever reach the point where she'd be comfortable announcing herself as Torchwood. "Officers? I'm...I'm Torchwood. Lookin' for Jack Harkness?"

The officer with the notebook glanced up from his labours, started to say something, and then fixed his eyes on her face in a manner that suggested he'd need to be blindfolded before he'd stop staring. His companion, slower on the uptake, craned his neck around to look at her and then adopted the same bewildered expression.

"I'm Torchwood," Gwen said again, growing discomfited. "I need to come through? Official business."

Still she was met with silence from behind two pairs of glassy eyes.

"Gwen."

Jack stepped into the disjointed light flicker from the police cars, and his expression – even in the disorienting red-blue-red flashes – was grave. He walked around the cordon, ignoring the gawping coppers, and took her by the hand.

"What's the matter wi' them?" she asked, as Jack led her through the cars towards a white tent that had been erected by the side of the road. "Look like they've seen a ghost!"

"Hmm," said Jack, and then stopped them both outside the tent flap. He half turned, then placed both hands on her shoulders. The gesture was both eerily paternal and, in the circumstances, terribly frightening.

"Are you okay?" he asked, as if the question were not half as incongruous as Gwen felt it to be.

"Jack, you're scaring me," she said, but making no move to remove herself from his grasp. "What's going on? What's in there?"

"I just want to be sure you're ready for this," said Jack, letting her go and lifting the tent flap. "We were called out here about half an hour ago. Didn't know why until we got here, and then..." His voice tailed off.

The interior of the tent was flooded with light from several portable halogen lamps; they were centred on a car which had come to rest on the side of the road, its front wheels driven into the verge with such force that they were several inches deep in mud. The vehicle – funnily enough, she noted, a Mini Cooper – seemed mostly undamaged, although it appeared to be steaming from somewhere beneath the bonnet.

Gwen circled around to the driver's side, and corrected her initial assessment of the car's condition. The side window there was a blind haze of cracks focused on a hole about half an inch in diameter. The driver's door appeared to be dented, too, and the wing mirror was missing.

"You don't have to look," said Jack, suddenly close, his breath fanning the side of her neck. She spoke without turning.

"I'm a copper," she said, far more matter-of-factly than she felt. "I have seen blood and bodies before, you know."

With that, she pulled at the handle, wrenching the door back on the second try. The light from the lamps spilled into the car, illuminating its occupant. Dead? She tried to study the figure at the wheel, running all the spot checks her police training had instilled in her, but after the first few seconds, her mind was running on empty.

The blood caked in the tangled black hair.

The hands still gripping the steering wheel, almost as if glued there.

The lap full of shattered glass.

The vicious wound to the temple.

The face. Oh Jesus, the face.

_The __face_.

Gwen reared away from the car, one hand clutching at empty air, the other slapped over her mouth in a reflexive act of horror. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. She was only barely aware of a pair of arms being wrapped around her waist and pulling her aside.

She turned, grabbing at whoever it was behind her, expecting Jack. Needing Jack. Instead, she found herself face to face with Owen, his face sallow and his eyes bruised with shock.

"It's all right," he said, wrapping one hand around the back of her neck and studying her face at close quarters. "It's all right. You're all right," he repeated. Gwen drew a whistling breath, wanting to cry out at him. How the fuck was it 'all right'?

"We don't know what's happened here," said Jack's voice from somewhere in the far, far distance, "but we _will_ work it out, Gwen. You have my word on that."

She gave up, sinking her head onto Owen's shoulder. She felt him stiffen for a fraction of a second, as if unsure where to put his hands, then he stroked the back of her head, just once, and said nothing.

"Gwen?" said Jack, gently. She pulled back, avoiding Owen's gaze, and forced herself to turn around and look at the car once more, knowing that if she couldn't do so now, her only other option was to sprint out into the lurid darkness and never stop screaming again as long as she lived.

"Let's get to work, then," she said, perfectly tranquil, and wondered idly if this was what the opening chords of insanity felt like. She bent down and reached into the open door, pressing soft, exploratory fingertips into the flesh of the corpse behind the wheel.

From behind a mask of blood, Gwen Cooper stared back at her.


	2. Revival

The post mortem room was unusually cold.

Gwen pulled her knees up beneath her breasts, balancing on the stool as best she could. Her gaze swept the room, landing on just about everything beside the shrouded shape on the table.

She twitched at the sharp snap of latex, and focused on Owen as he entered the room, pulling on a pair of gloves. He caught her eye, his expression grimly apologetic, and then glanced across the table at Jack, who was propped in the corner with arms folded tight across his chest.

"Should she be in 'ere?" asked Owen, quietly, although not as quietly as all that. Gwen jerked her head up savagely and fixed him.

"I'm right here, Owen Harper," she said, bitterly, "and I'm _staying_. Just get on with it, all right?"

Gwen subsided as Owen pulled back the sheet and studied his subject. She tried to detach herself from the scene playing out before her eyes, with minimal success. Even so, she suspected that she was finding all of this worryingly easy to deal with – certainly easier than Owen, who looked as if he'd been mugged.

The woman on the table didn't look exactly like her. She was thinner, for one thing, although Gwen was unsure how much of that verdict was down to her own perception of herself. Her hair was a little longer, and her clothing was...was..._hang __on __a __moment_. Gwen unfolded herself from the stool and stared at Jack.

"Her clothes," she said. "They're...wrong."

Jack peeled himself out of his niche and approached the examination table.

"How?" he asked, his frown drawing in.

"They're old," said Gwen. "I mean old fashioned. Seventies," she persisted, her gaze flickering between Jack and Owen as if she were at a tennis match.

"She's right," said Owen, softly. "Retro, maybe?"

The woman was wearing a soft satin shirt, cut high on the waist and low on the neckline, in a vivid green Paisley pattern none the less striking for the spatters of dried blood on it. Beneath this she wore a green tweed midi skirt and what Gwen could recall her mother referring to as 'kinky boots', with high, chunky heels and a zip up the outside.

Jack shook his head minutely.

"No," he said, after the slightest pause for thought. "These look authentic."

The study was interrupted as Tosh clattered into the post mortem room at something approaching a dead run. She hesitated, collected herself visibly, cast a brief but pregnant glance at the corpse and addressed Jack.

"I've checked the car with Swansea," she said. "The plate was first registered on the first of August, 1972 and retired in 1985."

Gwen blanched, and cleared her throat, waiting until she could trust her own voice again.

"Any chance this is a fake number plate?" she asked. Tosh nodded slightly.

"Always a possibility, but..." she hesitated, and took a longer look at the body on the slab, "...what's going on?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," Jack told her. He straightened up. "Owen, carry on and holler if you find anything odd. Gwen, you come with me, please."

Grateful for the slightest excuse to relinquish control of her own actions, Gwen followed Jack up to his office. He slipped an arm around her waist to usher her through the door, closed it behind them, and sat her down in front of his desk.

He didn't speak until he'd settled himself in his own chair and planted his chin in his palm, and when he did, his first words took her by surprise.

"So, what do you think's happened here?" he asked, his manner perfectly calm and pleasant. Gwen, who had been expecting some kind of solicitous pep talk, let her jaw flap loose for a moment or two.

"Uh," she tried, then reeled back and started again. "No idea?" she hazarded. Jack smiled, although without reproach.

"I hired because I know you can think, Gwen Cooper," he told her. "I know you've just seen something rather disturbing to say the least, but frankly, that's rather my point. If that is you down there on the slab, then you're the best qualified of my team to take the guesses."

"Okay," she breathed carefully. "What we know so far is..." she paused for inspiration, took in Jack's encouraging expression, and ploughed on, "...that she's one of three things. Me from the past, or from the future, or from a parallel dimension. God, I feel weird talking like this," she added, apropos of very little and only slightly hysterically.

"No need, said Jack. "I've seen and heard more 'weird' than you can imagine. Just keep talking."

"Well, we know it's not me from the past, 'cause I'm not dead," Gwen ventured, then ground to a stuttering halt. She felt transfixed beneath Jack's scrutiny and wondered – not for the first time – just what he had seen, just what he had heard, and just where he had been that he could apparently take all of this in his stride.

"Good point," he said. "Not _entirely _accurate on the possibilities here, but points for clear thinking all the same." He stood up, stretched gracefully and turned away with his hands on his hips. When he spoke again, he did so without looking at her, and his voice seemed to have shed its light, conversational tone.

"When were you born?" he asked, very quietly.

* * *

Owen pulled his gloves up along his wrists, realized that he was trying to put off touching the body, and growled ineffectively. Tosh watched him carefully over the table, but said nothing. He shared a hopeless look with her, then picked up his scalpel and slit the blouse open.

Once he'd revealed the torso, he turned aside and examined the gash on the temple; still playing for time.

"Looks superficial," he said, determinedly locked in thought and trying not to consider who he was working on. "There's a lot of blood, but scalp wounds always bleed like a bastard. I don't think this is fatal," he added.

He turned his attention to the hands. It had been something of a struggle to remove them from the steering wheel of the car, and now he had some decent lighting, he could see why. Both palms bore third degree burns; the skin was mangled and there were traces of what looked like melted black plastic in the wounds.

"What happened there?" asked Tosh, nervously.

"I've seen plenty of these before," Owen told her. "Electrical burns, I'd say. Looks as if we've found the cause of death. Right," he said, trying for 'brisk' but falling several miles short of the mark. "Let's have a look inside, shall we?"

He fixed his gaze on the corpse's face. Eyes closed. Tranquil. Pretty, even, since he'd wiped away the blood. Then he groaned softly and pressed the tip of the scalpel to the hollow of her throat.

He heard Tosh gasp as a fat bead of blood swelled out of the incision and ran a quick, shocking trail over the soft white skin. In spite of all his training, Owen was slower to react, but when he did, he snapped like a rattlesnake. He grabbed a swab, pressed it to the wound and jerked his head at Tosh.

"Get the bloody defibrillator," he barked. "_She's __still __alive!_"


	3. Reflection

"I want to talk to her, Jack," said Gwen, flatly.

"Sorry. Out of the question," said Jack, folding his hands together on the desk. "Firstly, she's still under sedation. Secondly, it's too dangerous, especially if she's from the future."

Gwen bridled.

"Oh, come on," she retorted. "What kind of things d'you think I'm going to ask her about, anyway? Next week's Lottery numbers? Give me _some _credit."

Jack's all but permanent half-smile faded entirely, and he pierced her with a stare that had her backing away a step.

"I _am _giving you credit," he told her. "I'm giving you credit for being human, and flawed, and frightened." Gwen opened her mouth again, but he silenced her with an economical gesture. "That only goes double when there's two of you. Between her fear and yours, there's no telling what might get said...and what harm it could cause."

"And you're _so_much more experienced at talking to time travellers, of course," said Gwen. She didn't want to pour scorn on Jack, and she realised she was getting painfully defensive, but she was coming to think that she'd handled the situation better when she'd thought her other self was dead. Now that she knew better, it was as if she could feel a second heart, beating somewhere across the room. It was a hateful sensation.

She watched Jack unfold himself from his chair and move to stand right in front of her.

"Yes, I am," he said, softly. "Please don't envy me my experiences, Gwen. Most of them came at a heavy price. I'm going to deal with this because, believe me, _you __don't __want __to_."

He half turned away, lips narrowing, indicating that the discussion was over. Gwen sucked in a breath, debated further argument, and then shot the idea down. Jack's expression was grave.

Instead, she wandered down to the medical unit. She found Owen sitting by the patient's bedside, his fingers wrapped around his mouth, his eyes distant. She stood by the door, waiting for him to notice her, and while she waited, she ran her gaze over the woman in the bed.

Her first impression had been slightly out of kilter. Cleaned up, resting, and even beneath a plastic oxygen mask and a bandage around her head, the woman looked a lot like Gwen. Gwen's eyes moved slightly, noticing that there were more bandages swaddling the hands.

"Where did you spring from?" whispered Gwen, and it was at that point that Owen twitched out of his reverie and stood up hastily, moving around the bed, half-heartedly barring her way.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking as if he meant it. "Jack's told me not to let you in. I'm only waiting 'ere in case she wakes up," he added, as if this went some way towards mitigation.

"I can ask how she is, though?" said Gwen, still trying to keep that defensive tone out of her voice. Owen nodded.

"She's okay," he agreed. "Well...it was close. I'm not giving you any guarantees she'll even wake up again. I had to sedate her right away because she was hysterical, so this far I've no idea if there's any brain damage."

"Thanks," said Gwen, hearing that her tone had moved from defensive to sour. "Has anyone ever told you that your bedside manner lacks a certain finesse?" It was with the slightest, tiniest grain of satisfaction that she watched Owen squirm.

"Look, I'm sorry," he exhaled. "It's been a bit of a rough day so far."

"I couldn't agree more," said Gwen, but without further rancour. She stepped aside so that she could look past Owen at the woman. She noticed that her eyelids were starting to flicker.

"She's waking up," Gwen said, trying to move into the room, to get to the woman. She had no more than a nominal amount of control over her feet. Owen backed up and grabbed her by the shoulders, propelling her back out into the corridor.

"Get Jack," he said, firmly. When Gwen didn't respond, didn't look at him, he snapped his fingers in front of her eyes. "Gwen? Go and get Jack. Now!"

With that, he swung her around, pointed her in the direction of the laboratory, then stalked back into the isolation room, banging the door closed behind him. Gwen watched through the glass screen as he pulled a penlight out of his pocket and lifted her other self's eyelids one by one, then she ran for Jack's office.

Jack was waiting for her. She pushed open the door and almost stumbled into his arms. He raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

"She's waking up," Gwen babbled. "Owen told me to come and get you."

"Thanks," said Jack, smiling sadly. He moved her aside, gently but firmly, and stepped past her. Gwen moved to follow him, but he slammed the door on her and locked it before she had a chance to react, let alone move.

Gwen blinked several times, and then snapped. She slammed the flat of her hand against the glass, making the door rattle in its frame. Jack turned to head back down the stairs.

"_Wait!_" she shrieked. She watched him hesitate, turn on his heel and walk back to the door. He moved up so close that his breath fogged the glass.

"You don't trust me?" demanded Gwen.

"Nope," said Jack. His stance was apologetic, but he made no move to unlock the door. Gwen could only watch as he slipped the key into his pocket and turned away down the staircase.

"Bastard," she snarled, impotently.

* * *

Jack pushed his way into the room, nodded at Owen, and said: "Out". He waited until Owen had rounded the corner, then closed the door and approached the bed.

The woman moved as if dreaming. Her hands, even tight beneath several layers of bandages, seemed to be clenching rhythmically. As he watched, inching closer, her head turned so far to the side that her cheek pressed into the pillow, and the oxygen masked slipped aside.

With no obstruction, he could hear that she was whispering, little gasps more than words.

"_No__t..._" she said, and arched her back gently, her hair sliding over her face. "_No...not..._" she breathed, as the small convulsion seemed to pass.

Jack frowned, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He reached for her hand, lifted it, and slipped his fingers inside the edge of the bandage to locate her pulse. It was rapid, but not racing or erratic, and he gently pressed the hand back into place at her side.

"_Doyle_," she muttered, and Jack froze at once, this time feeling his own pulse as it leapt up into the side of his throat and started to hammer against his larynx. _Did she say...?_

Recovering - if only moderately – and aware that there were more pressing issues at hand, he leaned close again and brushed the hair away from the woman's forehead. It was as if his touch had run a needle through her brain, as she twisted away from his fingertips and her eyes slammed open at once.

For several seconds, she stared at the light on the ceiling while her throat worked spasmodically. Then, before Jack could move, speak or even consider his options, she lurched bolt upright in bed, clamped both hands around the back of his neck and kissed him fiercely.

For the second time in a handful of moments, Jack froze. His hands curled around her shoulders – reflex, nothing but reflex, he knew – and he tasted her breath.

Before he could override his immediate reaction, she broke the kiss and jolted back, fixing her wide eyes on his at last.

"There's not much time," she said, firmly and clearly, and then sagged in his arms.


	4. Reassurance

Gwen felt like an outsider.

Ianto had let her out of Jack's office and brought her tea, at least, but he'd laid it on the table as if he were feeding a tiger at the zoo and then retreated to the other side of the room, ostensibly to speak to Tosh. This he was indeed doing, although their voices were low and, whatever they were discussing, it seemed to necessitate regular glances in her direction.

Her only immediate companionship was Owen, but even he was watching her as if she might explode at any moment. Gwen tried to stare him down, gave up, sipped distractedly at her tea and then set the cup down with a very careful click.

It was Tosh who finally drove a wedge into the awkward silence. She turned away from her computer terminal, her expression carefully neutral, and pushed her hair out of her eyes distractedly.

"There's something you need to know," she said, haltingly, not quite looking at Gwen. "I've just checked the chassis number of the car with police databases from the relevant time period. I had to go through a lot of microfilm, but I found the archive. That car was reported stolen from the car park of the University Hospital of Wales on the night of the tenth of March, 1978 and never recovered."

Owen was the only one not reacting accordingly. Gwen, for her part, covered her mouth for a second before speaking. When she did, it was as if her tongue had glued itself to the back of her throat.

"That's...where I was born," she said. "That's my birthday," she added, unsure if she were trying to enlighten Owen as to the facts or merely confirm what her ears had just heard.

"We know," said Ianto, and his voice caught on the second word. Gwen was not quite distracted enough to miss it, and jerked her head up to look at him. "There was a second police report dated the same night," he told her, and cast a despairing glance at Tosh, who took over.

"There was a murder," said Tosh. "Someone entered the maternity unit and shot a newborn girl. Nobody was ever arrested for it."

Gwen struggled out of her chair and backed away, head shaking convulsively. Owen reached for her, but she slapped his hands away and stumbled into the corner, where she sank to her knees and wrapped her hair around her face.

"That's impossible," she gasped, eyes stinging. She dragged her gaze back up and bared her teeth at Tosh. "I'm still here! How can I be dead? _I'm __still __fucking __here!_"

Ianto was the first to move; she allowed him to pull her up off the floor and brush her down gently. He led her back to her chair, and she was content enough, for the moment, to be calm. How long the calm would last, she had no clue, but she wallowed in it while it did.

"Gwen...we've no idea how all this stuff works, especially with paradox situations." She shrugged. "Half your time at Torchwood'll be spent learning to _act_as if you know what you're doing even if you don't, and hoping that buys you enough time to get to the facts. I'm waffling. Sorry," she finished, with a weak smile.

Gwen hadn't been listening, anyway. She rattled her fingernails on the tabletop and then dragged her palm down her face.

"This has something to do with Jack," she said, placidly.

"You can't know that," said Owen. She ignored him.

"He knows more than he's lettin' on," Gwen insisted. "When I spoke to him earlier, he asked me when I was born. Bloody weird question, I thought at the time, but he knew, didn't he? He knew. Or at least he had an idea, which is more than _we've_got."

"How could he know this was going to happen?" asked Ianto.

"When I started here," said Gwen, distantly, "you all told me that none of you knew anything about his past. Where he's from, where he's been, _nothing_. He's hiding something important. Oh..." she gasped, sucking in air. "I don't know. I can't think straight any more."

"You're safe," said Ianto.

"For the moment," countered Gwen, with a short and bitter laugh.

"And we're going to keep it that way," he finished. "I trust Jack. Whether or not he's hiding something isn't relevant at the moment. Do you honestly believe he'd let someone hurt you?"

"Past tense, Ianto," snapped Gwen. "Someone _has_hurt me. I've been dead for almost thirty years, remember?"

Tosh swung around the table and sat down beside Gwen, taking her hands.

"Listen to me," she said, earnestly. "The fact that you haven't winked out of existence means that the situation's still in limbo. Right now, for whatever reason, you're free-floating outside of the timeline. That means things aren't resolved, and there's still something to be done. Yes?"

Gwen laughed again, this time managing to inject a trace of humour into the sound.

"Anyone seen _The __Terminator_?" she asked, and heard Owen snort derisively. "Talk about life imitating art."

Tosh smiled brightly, squeezing Gwen's hands between her own, and was about to speak again when an alarm began to shriek from the console. Ianto jumped visibly and darted to the terminal, frowning at the readout.

"We've got a security breach," he said, urgently.

* * *

"Why don't you start at the beginning?" said Jack, straddling a chair and focusing on the woman in the bed.

She didn't look at him immediately, but when she did, her eyes were round, black and quite bottomless. The skin beneath her hairline was bruised; not badly so, but the marks stood out brazenly against a background of skin that was as white as calico.

"What happened to you?" Jack prompted. "Gwen?"

"We were attacked," she said, eventually, enunciating carefully, as if her words were consummately fragile. "I can't remember much about it. It all happened so fast..." She shook her head - _tick-tock-tick_- as if to clear it. "I remember a name. Argentus Doyle?"

Jack struggled to contain his reaction, knowing that it was far more important to get the facts out of their patient than to start panicking; and it disturbed him that, in spite of his every attempt, there _was_indeed a little panic-rat gnawing at the lining of his stomach. He swallowed as much bile as he could and nodded encouragingly. She was speaking again.

"It was like being reincarnated," she said, slowly, "or something like it. There's nothing but confusion and pieces of memory...no," she corrected herself, "more like _déjà __vu_. After that, I felt as if I was being suffocated in the dark. Crushed. Drowning. Couldn't breathe. All I could think of was you. I'm sorry I kissed you," she stuttered, and then lapsed into a morose silence.

Jack crossed to the bed, sat down close by her side and lifted her chin on his finger, adopting a soft smile.

"I don't care what else you apologise for, Gwen Cooper," he said, "but please don't apologise for that splendid kiss. Okay? Now, just try to remember what happened after the dark."

"Well," she said, "The first clear thing I remember is –"


	5. Remembrance

An alarm bell. It began sluggishly, as if her ears were clogged, but after a while the strident clanging resolved, and then grew louder and louder until Gwen finally forced her eyes open and rolled over gracelessly.

This brought her to the edge of whatever surface she'd been lying on, and she half-stumbled onto the floor, keeping her balance by only the smallest of margins. Her heels smacked against freezing linoleum, and it wasn't until this point that she realised her feet were bare.

The cold crept further up her legs and across her belly, and Gwen came to the further realisation that she was in fact entirely naked.

Reflex had her crossing her arms across her breasts – firstly to ward off the cold, and secondly to cover herself – but it gradually dawned on her that she was alone. Gwen let go of a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding, and turned around.

Fuzzy as she was, she could see that she was in a hospital. The immediate area contained nothing more than the narrow, padded trolley on which she'd been lying, a tubular steel chair with a grey plastic sack on it, and a mysterious piece of medical equipment in a bracket on the wall. The space was surrounded by drawn curtains in some ghastly blue and green floral pattern.

The alarm bell died, as switched off at once, and without its deafening cry, Gwen could now hear an entirely different manner of shrieking in the distance. Human screams. A door banged somewhere, and there was the sound of running feet.

Sudden terror crept up into her throat, threatening to choke her, and she looked around wildly. She spotted the sack on the chair and dived for it, pulling out the contents as fast as she could, examining them feverishly.

They were, thankfully, women's clothes, although she'd have settled for any kind of covering. It filtered through her brain, at some level, that there was something odd about the garments, but this was pinned down beneath the weight of her survival instinct and she pulled them on. They were a little large, but not too much so. Last of all, she fished out a pair of brown mock leather boots and zipped them up.

The sounds of chaos seemed to be drawing closer to her location. Narrowing her eyes, she tried to decide on the best way out. She pulled back the curtain an inch, saw nobody in the corridor, and slipped out.

She found a door after a while and shoved at the push bar, too bewildered and frightened to care if it was alarmed. It wasn't.

There was a commotion outside, and Gwen ducked out and around the corner before she was spotted. It was raining; not slashing down, but the drizzle was the kind that crept in through the warp and weft of any clothing it touched. She peered around the corner through rat-tails of already damp hair and saw that there were half a dozen panda cars parked skew outside the main entrance of the hospital.

Gwen was about to withdraw into the shadows when a tiny, icy trickle of horror seeped down her neck.

_Panda cars?_

It was a familiar point in a suddenly, terrifyingly unfamiliar scene. She backed off, hands wrapped around her elbows, shivering in the dampness, as several police officers filtered out into the night. She heard their radios spitting and crackling even over the rustle of the rain.

"Pretty lady?"

Gwen spun around, her feet tangled, and she almost fell. There was an alley behind her; a poorly lit and narrow passageway between buildings, just wide enough for several dented metal rubbish bins and one slim, silhouetted figure. She squinted helplessly.

"Yes?" she croaked, trying to see who was addressing her through the glare of the light over the door. The figure appeared to shrug, and then stepped to the side. It half turned, and illuminated a narrow slice of face containing one translucent grey eye and a third of a slight smile.

"I've been looking for you," said the face.

"Who are you?" said Gwen, her hand reflexively dropping to her side in search of a pistol that was no longer holstered there. Something in that voice, as smooth and calm as it was, was also morbidly unsettling. She didn't know where she was, but right now, she also knew where she didn't want to be.

The stranger drew something out of his coat pocket, and all at once the alley was bathed in green light. There was a whining hum, so high-pitched as to make her sinuses ache.

Gwen looked into that clouded eye, turned, and ran headlong into the darkness.

* * *

"And then what?" asked Jack.

"I stole that car and found somewhere to hide for a few days," she said, simply. "Don't look so surprised. There are two levels of police training – there's the official sort that looks good on the telly, and then there's the 'know thine enemy' sort. Among other things, I learned to break into cars."

Jack, believing discretion to be the better part of just about everything in life, forbore to comment.

"So who's Argentus Doyle?" she asked, taking him by surprise. "I saw you twitch when I gave you that name."

"He's nobody," Jack told her. Her stare remained waxy and impassive and quite unimpressed.

"You really think this is a good time to be lying to me, Jack? _Really?_"

"All right," said Jack, wearily, and levered himself off the bed, pacing, hands clamped behind his back as he spoke. "Argentus Doyle and I go back a long, long way in one form or another. I can't say we were always the best of friends, but we were never the worst of enemies, either.

"It might even have stayed that way if I hadn't betrayed him over a black market deal," Jack went on. "I didn't set him up with the cops, though, and I've no idea who _did_, but the point's irrelevant. He blamed me. I honestly believed I'd managed to put enough time and space between us. I'm sorry you got caught in the crossfire," he finished.

Jack turned back just in time to receive a stinging slap. Gwen grabbed his shirt collar and slammed him up against the wall with more strength than her slight frame should have allowed.

"_I'd __be __dead __if __it __wasn't __for __the __Rift!_" she shrieked into his face. "What the bloody hell have you got us all into, Jack? We trusted you and we respected your right to all your dirty little secrets, and now because of one of them we're all in danger. _I __hope __you're __fucking __satisfied!_"

There were several seconds of silence following this ringing scream; they were sucked into the void it left as effectively as smoke into a slipstream. Gwen uncurled her hands from Jack's collar, slowly and hesitantly, but didn't drop her gaze.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, quietly. "Sorry?"

"Not good enough," she snapped.

"I'll fix this?" he tried.

"Better."

"I want to kiss you again?" he said.

"What?"

Not content to wait for a more coherent or considered response, Jack tangled his hand in her hair and pulled her closer. She jerked back a little, but only in surprise, and then she twisted out of his grasp and bit ever so softly at his lower lip.

Jack exhaled slowly and wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her up against him. She was softer than he could have imagined, and the heat of her breasts and belly seeped through their clothing and lit his skin on fire. He traced the line of her cheek with his fingertips, carefully avoiding the bruises, and felt a pale pink flush rising there.

Just then, the piercing howl of the security alarm dragged them apart. Jack gasped convulsively as the contact was severed, too abruptly. Gwen crouched for a second like a hunted hare, and then stared at him, her eyes wide, horribly dilated and ringed with fear.

"This is it," she said.


	6. Realisation

Ianto hammered at the keyboard as the lights flickered and dimmed. The bulbs struggled helplessly for a few seconds, and then winked out. The emergency lighting hummed into life, bathing the lab in sullen red light.

"Shit," he said, softly. "We've gone into lock-down. _All _the doors are sealed."

Gwen drew her gun and tried to steady the weapon with one shaking hand clamped over the other.

"Tosh? Owen?" she called out, turning over her shoulder. "Where are you?"

The alarm stuttered into silence as Gwen waited for a response. She could see Ianto out of the corner of her eye as he edged out of the shadows towards the centre of the room, looking as if he wished he were armed, too. Gwen wanted to tell him that this wish was futile; her gun wasn't affording her all that much reassurance.

There was a curiously organic noise behind her, and she swung around, her finger tightening reflexively on the trigger.

Tosh gasped in pain as she was dragged by her hair into the light of the central well. Gwen adjusted her footing and trained the gun on the figure behind Tosh, but in response he simply dragged his captive upright and stepped behind her.

"Put down the gun, pretty lady," he said, mildly, nodding at Gwen as affably as if they'd just met at a party. She ignored this, and tried to study the stranger.

Everything about him was odd. Not glaringly so, but he stood out in small, subtle ways that, put together, equalled a whole novel's worth of wrongness. His long, braided hair was silver. Not white, or grey, or any other shade sometimes dignified – it was pure silver. Even in the low light, it shone vibrantly.

Gwen realised, with a sudden twinge of horror, that his eyes had the same shine. With the slightest turn of the head, his pupils flashed and gleamed in her direction.

"Where's Owen?" she demanded, not taking her eyes off the stranger's, even as much as she longed to look away.

"Oh, he's sleeping," said another voice. "Sleeping like a baby," it added, and a second figure wandered into the control room, hands in its pockets, smiling at her, all pleasantry.

Gwen stared, and at last, her gun sagged in her hand.

The new arrival was identical to the one holding Tosh. His voice, his hair, his clothes. The same shining eyes. The same confident air. Gwen raised the gun once more, but without hope, and the second stranger took several quick steps across the floor and snatched it out of her hand.

"That's better," he purred, and wrapped one hand around her neck, forcing her to her knees. Distantly, Gwen felt the unnatural heat of his hand on her skin. She twisted slightly, but the grip tightened until she saw stars, and she stopped moving.

"No, no. Stay where you are, young man," said the stranger from above her head. This was to Ianto, who had been backing towards the door. "Stay where you are and everything'll be fine. Trust me," he added, and laughed softly. It was the most ominous sound Gwen had ever heard in her life.

In the silence that followed, there was the hollow sound of footsteps on the catwalk, and a third identical figure stepped out and surveyed the scene below.

"Tell me," he said, voice ringing out in the still air. "Where might I find Captain Jack Harkness?"

* * *

Jack flipped open the cover on the magnetic lock controls and prodded a few buttons, more out of hope than anything else. The lock buzzed angrily, refusing to open, and he slapped a hand against the door, impotently.

"There were three of them," said Gwen from behind his shoulder, her voice small. "Three men. All the same. Exactly the same," she persisted, her tone suggesting that she was talking less to Jack and more to herself.

"I believe you," he said, turning around and slumping back against the cool steel. "That's Doyle's old party trick. They're not clones; they're all him. He visits several timelines and recruits _himself_. He thinks it's clever," he added, with a sour grin.

Gwen was rubbing her hands together distractedly; the rasp of the bandages seemed to be hypnotising her.

"You didn't come back for us. I remember that now," she told him. "He asked us where you were, and we couldn't tell him. It was you he wanted." She paused and laughed, mirthlessly. "I was right all along," she said.

Jack stroked her cheek, fondly.

"I could have told you that," he said. "But I said I'll fix this, and I will. I..." He stopped, as if hit by a falling brick. "Hold on. How did you get back here?" he asked, suddenly aware of the urgency of the situation. He watched Gwen drop her head for a moment.

"He had a mobile phone," she said, eventually. "Or at least that's what it looked like. I took it when he wasn't looking. He found me after a week. I'd been hiding in my gran's garden shed, which I suppose was stupid of me."

Jack took her by the upper arms and shook her, gently but insistently.

"Focus, Gwen? The mobile phone? Where is it?" he said, keeping his voice as even as he could. She blinked a couple of times, and her eyes cleared.

"The car," she said, nodding. "It's still in the car."

Letting a painful breath escape at last, Jack allowed himself a small measure of relief. The car was in the lower level, just one floor down, and there were no security doors in the way. He ushered Gwen out of the door and down the corridor.

"I know what happened to you," he said, as they made their way. "I've seen him do it before. It's quite elegant, really. If Doyle wants to kill you, he won't risk his life doing it there and then. He'll simply wipe out every trace of your existence.

"He knew where you'd be, and when, and he knew you'd be small and helpless. Perfect. You were right about one thing: the only reason you survived the paradox was because you were on top of the Rift."

Jack ducked through a low door and slapped at the light switch, and they both winced beneath the fluorescent tubes. The battered Mini that Gwen had arrived in was there, now shrouded beneath a tarpaulin. Jack ripped at the corner, dragging it aside, exposing the vehicle.

"Where is it?" he asked. She pointed mutely to the driver's side door. Jack wrenched it open and bent to peer into the foot-well. The rubber matting was littered with smashed glass, but he reached beneath the driver's seat and closed his fingers on something cool and compact.

"Got it," he said, and straightened up, examining the object in the glaring light. Gwen had been right: it looked so much like a mobile phone that it had probably been deliberately disguised as one. There was an alphanumeric keypad, and a small colour screen that was displaying an eye-watering sapphire blue, endlessly shifting matrix. Jack clamped his hand around the transporter and ran an admiring fingertip over the buttons.

"Jack," said Gwen, softly. Engrossed in the transporter, he didn't react immediately. She laid a hand on his arm, and he looked up, reverie broken.

"One way or another, this is goodbye," she told him. Her voice was level, but her eyes betrayed the depth of her sorrow. Jack frowned, momentarily puzzled. She cocked her head to one side.

"You know, you really are cute when you're confused, Jack Harkness. But you know as well as I do that it's time for me to go. If you lose, Doyle's going to kill me, and this time it'll be for the last time. If you win, I become obsolete. Just seven days in Gwen Cooper's life that didn't happen after all."

Jack bit his lip – a gesture quite uncharacteristic – and looked down at Gwen for a few seconds before pulling her into his arms. She sighed, breath quivering, and laid her cheek against his shoulder. Jack closed his eyes and hugged, trying to pretend for both their sakes that he didn't have to let her go.

"Don't forget me," she said, her voice hoarse.

"I won't," he replied, firmly.

"Oh, but you will," she said. "Everyone will."

"_No_," said Jack, breathing the word into her hair. "Don't you know me by now?"

Gwen straightened up, all at once, and raised her head. Jack could see that her eyes were lined with pink, but he also knew that he'd be damned if he'd say so.

"Do you remember the first thing I said to you?" she was asking.

"You said there's not much time," said Jack. He watched her nod decisively.

"There isn't. Go. Now."

Jack hesitated, his thumb on the Redial button, his expression quite composed. Gwen smiled gently and reached for his hand, squeezing it. The phone connected and started to vibrate in his palm.

She was still smiling at him as his vision faded to black.


	7. Reunion

Jack blinked, trying to clear a cloud of pale sparks from his vision, and then staggered back into a nearby wall.

The dizzying sparks finally consented to fade, and he turned to take in his surroundings. He had come to earth several yards from the main doors of the hospital, between two parked cars. Jack studied them briefly; they seemed to be about right for the time period. He straightened up and headed for the light spilling from the open doors.

Inside, he met a nurse. Her uniform looked appropriate, too - crisp, clean dress, tightly buckled belt and a prim white starched cap. He finally raised his eyes to her face, which was now set in a faintly disapproving frown at what must have appeared, to her, to be a bout of unseemly ogling. Jack recovered his mental balance and treated her to one of his most appealing smiles.

"I'm sorry, Sister," he said, hoping that he'd chosen the correct form of address. "I wonder if you could tell me the way to the Maternity unit?"

Jack realised that he had the power of circumstance on his side. Hospital staff were probably well used to confused and flustered men looking for Maternity. He waited, and at last the nurse returned his smile, albeit thinly, and answered him.

"That's all right, sir," she said, her accent strong and melodious. "Just down the way, and follow the green signs. You can't miss it," she finished, and then turned away abruptly. Jack nodded and headed down the corridor.

He knew he hadn't arrived too late, at least, but aside from that, he had no clue how much of a head start he'd secured. Doyle might be along in an hour, or he might be there already. This latter mental image jolted him badly, and he broke into a trot.

He followed the nurse's directions, and at length he arrived at a pair of double doors labelled MATERNITY. He paused, edged to one side and peeped through the circular window in the nearside door. Beyond, there was another brightly-lit corridor, with anonymous doors and windows on both sides. There was no sign of Doyle or, indeed, anyone else. Jack took a deep breath and pushed open the door as quietly as he could.

The rooms beyond smelled different, he realised. Unlike the rest of the hospital, the Maternity unit smelled alive. Vital. Organic. There was still that ever-present suggestion of disinfectant in the air, but it was subdued beneath the aroma of new life.

Jack continued on down the narrow corridor, peering hopefully into windows as he passed. After several false starts, he stopped outside one broad window and placed both palms on the glass, lost in thought.

There were half a dozen infants in there. Five were sleeping, at perfect peace, but the last was kicking hopelessly at the blanket over its legs and letting out high, breathless cries of frustration that sounded more like those of a kitten than a human child.

Jack leaned in closer to the glass and studied the sheet of paper tacked to the end of the crib, which read: _Cooper __(F) __10/3/78 __20:02 __7-9_.

In spite of both the peculiarity and the urgency of the situation, Jack smiled broadly, his gaze fixed on the hiccuping baby he now knew to be Gwen Cooper, all of two hours old.

So fixated on the child was Jack that he failed to hear a quiet footstep behind him.

He swung around, but milliseconds too late: a hand clamped down on his wrist and dragged it so far up his back that he both felt and heard his shoulder squeak. Reflex had him driving his other elbow back, but it failed to connect, and with a satisfied grunt, his attacker pulled him around and slammed him up against the wall so hard that he lost all his air.

"Captain Jack Harkness," said a voice, just an inch from his ear. "After all this time."

The hands released their grip at once, and Jack inhaled gratefully. He pivoted on the ball of one foot and started towards Doyle, but the man trained a disintegrator pistol on him and, just to be sure, backed up a few steps.

"After _all_this time," he repeated, shaking his head, smiling as if at some private joke. Jack rubbed his bruised breastbone and waited for Doyle to get to the point. Doyle's happy smile faded by degrees, and was then exchanged for a predatory scowl. His eyes flashed threateningly.

"I wonder if you remember where you left me?" he asked, and gestured pointedly with the pistol. Jack sighed, rolling his eyes.

"That would be somewhere in the middle of the Spanish Civil War, as I recall," he said.

"One point for the Captain," growled Doyle. "In fact, to be more specific about things, you left me in a prison cell in the middle of the Spanish Civil War."

"Sorry," said Jack, his mouth thinning, "but I had to make a decision, and as I was trying to do that, it occurred to me that _you _wouldn't have gone back for _me_."

Doyle ignored this; in point of fact, his attention had drifted. He had half turned and was staring in through the nearby window at the babies on the other side. At the edge of hearing, Jack could still make out the soft whimpers of the newborn Gwen.

Before Jack could make a move – any move – Doyle turned back to him and set his features in stone.

"I passed my time thinking up ways to kill you," he said, with glacial calm, "but I've heard that that's no longer an option. Oh, don't give me that puzzled look," he said scornfully, observing Jack's poker face. "Word gets around. I know you can't die. But you can still suffer," he finished, and then jerked his head at the neonatal unit.

"I waited months for my chance," he continued. "You keep a low profile. Keep yourself to yourself. You always did. But I knew that sooner or later I'd find your weak spot. Oh..." he smiled seraphically, "I did, didn't I?"

Jack felt his most recent breath congeal in his lungs, and he fought to avoid considering the conclusion at which Doyle was hinting.

"You see, Jack," Doyle was saying, clearly savouring every word, "You didn't follow me back to 1978. _I_ followed _you_."

Jack slumped back against the wall and ran one hand down over his face. He stared at the ceiling, at the floor, at a poster on the far wall. Everywhere and anywhere but at Argentus Doyle's face, because the sick triumph there would have been too hard to bear.

Then something at the back of his mind prodded him urgently, and he dragged his head back up. A small background noise was finally conspicuous only by its absence, and he turned back to Doyle with an expression of pure pleasure.

"Do you hear that?" he asked. Doyle's brows knotted.

"Hear what?" he demanded.

"That," said Jack, happily, "is precisely my point. Your battery's dead." With that, he stepped up in front of Doyle and grabbed the now useless pistol from him.

"_And __now __you __run_," snarled Jack.

Doyle didn't stop to think it over. He swung around, darted past Jack and slammed through the double doors at a dead run, heading for the main entrance. Jack pocketed the dead pistol, cast one last, fond glance at the snuffling baby, then grinned horribly and gave chase.

He hared past the startled nurse in reception, hearing her alarmed shout as he disappeared into the night, and had just half a second to realise that Doyle was no longer in view. Jack skidded to a halt, and turned just in time to catch a brutal high-kick to the ribs. The impact caused him a strangled yelp, and he dropped to the ground, landing badly. Something in his ankle gave way, and the pain ripped its way up to his hip before he could react any further.

Jack gasped horribly, trying to recover a portion of the breath he'd lost. He rolled over as Doyle drove another kick into his kidneys, and tasted blood at the back of his throat as he bit his tongue. Doyle loosed a short, derisory laugh, then turned and ran. Jack winced and uncurled, watching helplessly as Doyle rounded the corner and disappeared.

Just then, there was a dull, wooden thud, followed by silence.

Jack paused in mid-groan, unclenched his fists and struggled to his feet, dragging himself out of an ignominious puddle. He tested his ankle – twisted, for sure, but not broken, and it would soon be fixed in any case – and it seemed content to take his weight. He limped around the corner in pursuit of his quarry, then simply stood and stared.

Doyle was flat on his back, arms outstretched, as if he'd decided to make an angel in the mud. The rain was beating down on his face, but doing little to make an impact on what seemed to be blissful unconsciousness. The unconsciousness, Jack decided, had resulted from the wooden door into which he'd run at full tilt.

The door swung inward, and a head poked out and grinned down at Doyle's sprawled form.

"Ah," said the Doctor. "Bang on time!"


	8. Reorganisation

The rain rustled down out of the gloom. For a few moments, it was the only sound there was.

"Doctor?" said Jack at last, disbelief and happiness edging his voice in equal measure. The Doctor stepped out into the faint haze of drizzle and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"No flies on _you_, are there?" he said, leaning back against the TARDIS.

"_Doctor?_" repeated Jack, still in some shock. The Doctor examined his fingernails pointedly and said nothing at all.

"What are you..." Jack reeled himself in and tried again. "You look different?" he hazarded.

"Yep," agreed the Doctor. "I regenerated. Long story, and," he glanced down at Doyle, "I think it can wait for another time, don't you?"

Jack stood back a pace and ran his gaze over the Doctor. Soft brown hair going off at odd and disarming angles. Wide dark eyes. _Much __better __ears __this __time_, Jack added mentally, with just a trace of guilt. _Shame __about __the __outfit, _he thought, _but __you __can't __have __everything. __Overall __verdict: __Extremely __Cute._

"It's a look," he said, eventually, with half a smile. The Doctor's brows dropped abruptly, and Jack shut up at once.

"I'm not staying," the Doctor told him, "and I'm only here because you told me I'd already _been _here, which meant I couldn't get out of it without poking bloody great holes in the fabric of time and space. This is the last time I do you a favour, believe me."

Startled, Jack said the first thing that came to mind.

"Last?" he said, bridling. "It's the _first _time you've done me a favour."

"Not from where I'm standing," said the Doctor, darkly, and hunched his shoulders. Jack drew breath, then wisely decided to change the subject, and angled his head towards the TARDIS.

"So," he asked. "Am I in there?"

"Need to know basis, Captain," said the Doctor, "and you don't. Besides, I couldn't tell you that even if I wanted to. It's not in the script."

"The...script?" said Jack, now thoroughly lost.

"That's right. A little while ago, you told me I had to be outside the University Hospital of Wales at 9.53pm and fourteen seconds on Friday, tenth of March, 1978, and then you handed me a script. It's me who had the job of memorising it, by the way," he added sourly. "_You _just have to say whatever pops into your head."

The slow, insane grin that had been creeping across Jack's face during this speech finally bore fruit, and he stepped forward, clamped the Doctor's face between both hands and planted a warm, wet, enthusiastic kiss on his lips.

"It's _so _damn good to see you again," said Jack, still grinning like a cheese. The Doctor recoiled rather belatedly and hit his head on the door.

"Hey, hey, hey!" he protested. "That wasn't in the script!"

"I don't care," laughed Jack.

"Well, actually, it _was_," the Doctor admitted, "and so is this. You know," he went on, "it's times like this I'm glad I'm a Time Lord. We can cope with this sort of thing. Incidentally, did you know that Gallifreyan only operates in the present perfect tense? It makes discussions like this a whole lot less complicated. Human languages really aren't up to the job..."

Jack folded his arms and waited for the meandering rant to wind down. After a while, the Doctor seemed to realise that he'd lost his audience, rocked back on his heels and stopped talking.

"Some things just don't change, do they?" said Jack, nevertheless highly amused and entertained and, he had to admit, a little aroused. He'd kissed his fair share of extraterrestrials in a long and varied life, but the taste of the Doctor was still lingering on his lips and, while that lasted, he was enjoying it immensely.

"I hope not," said the Doctor, and turned his face up to the sky, causing his glasses to speckle with rain. He rummaged distractedly in one coat pocket, fished out several sheets of crumpled notebook paper and consulted them carefully, mouth moving in silence. At length, as Jack waited patiently, The Doctor stuffed the paper back into his pocket and seemed to collect himself.

"Right. Just a few more things on the agenda. Firstly, I'm supposed to give you this," he said, then reached behind the door of the TARDIS and produced a baseball bat. Jack pulled off a rather fine double-take and then stared bemusedly at three feet of polished wood.

"Why?" he asked.

"Search me," said the Doctor, dropping a theatrical shrug. "You're the one who asked for it. Go on, take it, we haven't got all night." Jack, bereft of any other option, reached out and grasped the handle, hefting it thoughtfully.

"Secondly," the Doctor said, "you're going to give me that transporter." He held out a hand to reinforce the point. Jack rooted in his pocket and handed it over. The Doctor frowned in concentration, took out the sonic screwdriver and traced it gently over the handset, which chirped frantically.

"What am I supposed to do with Doyle?" asked Jack. The Doctor snorted softly, not raising his eyes from his work. The screwdriver flashed once or twice, as brightly as a sparkler, and lit up his eyes.

"I'll take him with me when I go," he murmured vaguely. "What happens after that, I'm not allowed to tell you. Just rest assured he'll be no more trouble.

"Okay," he said at last, pocketing the screwdriver. "Well, some of us have things to do and," he raised a very meaningful eyebrow, "paradox loops to close, so there's just one more thing left before I go." He took a deep breath. "Thirdly and, thank goodness, finally...Captain?"

"Yes?" prompted Jack.

"Do _try_ to act surprised when you see me again, won't you?" the Doctor said, and aimed the transporter. Jack had just enough time to suck in a lungful of damp, chilly air before a bright red bolt hit him in the chest, and he vanished with a rather unimpressive _pop_.

The Doctor pulled his coat around him in the cold spring night and sighed, profoundly exasperated. He stooped and dragged Doyle up and over his shoulder and edged through the door. Halfway through, he dumped his soggy burden on the ramp, paused, and looked back out at the faint crackle in the air that marked the closing snap of the time vortex.

"Cheerio," he said, and then grinned brightly and closed the door.


	9. Resolution

"I'm going to ask you again," said Doyle, from on high. "Where's Jack Harkness?"

Gwen felt the pressure on her neck ease a little, and she struggled to her knees. The barrel of the gun was pressed against her head: not hard, but firmly enough to tell her that killing her was far from the last resort. She managed to catch sight of Tosh, struggling faintly against the iron grip on her throat.

"He's not here," said Ianto, still backed up against the console, clearly trying not to move or even breathe threateningly. "He went out over two hours ago."

Doyle had been descending the spiral staircase, hands clasped behind his back, humming some unidentifiable, haunting little tune. Now he crossed the floor and stood before Ianto, looking him up and down, slowly and thoughtfully.

"Nice," he said, eventually. "Handsome boys like you are at a premium where I come from." So saying, Doyle pushed him back against the desk and ran a hand up his inner thigh, squeezing hard. Ianto seemed too shocked to react properly, and he simply gasped as Doyle's grip tightened to the point of pain.

Gwen bared her teeth and ripped out of her captor's grasp, staggering to her feet. He grabbed her once more and pinned her arms behind her back, but she spat fury at Doyle from across the floor.

"Leave him alone," she growled. Doyle, apparently taken aback, released Ianto and faced her down.

"So _sweet_," he mocked her, pouting theatrically. "And what would you have me do instead?" he said, pacing towards her. "Are you offering to take his place?"

Without waiting for an answer, Doyle hooked one finger into the front of her shirt, ripping it unceremoniously. Buttons pattered onto the floor. Gwen bit back a yelp and looked down, seeing that she was now exposed. Doyle slipped his hand beneath the strap of her bra, probing indecorously at her shrinking flesh.

Gwen reacted on instinct, hardly considering the consequences. One leg jerked up as if someone was testing her reflexes, and she slammed her kneecap into his crotch.

Doyle wheezed, losing all his air in one violent exhalation, and doubled over. Gwen couldn't see his face, but she could easily imagine that it was colouring violently. He retched, still bent at an angle, and then straightened up so fast that his shining braid whipped around his neck.

Though she'd thought to prepare herself for it, Gwen was still rocked by the backhanded blow to her cheek. Her head snapped back – making contact with the other one's nose, by the feel of it – and now she whimpered. Doyle pushed his face into hers until all she could see were two shining chrome eyes with spots of high, furious colour beneath them.

"Did you enjoy that?" he hissed, his breath surrounding her.

At that moment, a soft beep came between them. Doyle started back, as if it were the last thing he'd been expecting, and after a brief pat-down, pulled out a mobile phone. He studied the display briefly, and then turned back to Gwen.

"I'm afraid we'll have to continue this later," he said, with an entirely humourless grin. "It seems as if your fearless Captain has finally made his move."

He nodded at his _doppelgänger_. "Feel free to keep her warm for me," he said with a wink, and pressed a button on the mobile. Gwen watched him disappear; not with a flash, some pyrotechnic marvel, but as if he were falling down a well, getting smaller and dimmer by the second, until he winked out just like the picture on an old TV screen.

The man holding her tightened his grip, and pressed his body up against her. Gwen felt his mouth close in on her ear.

"So who's going to come to _your _aid, pretty lady?" he whispered.

"I am," said Jack, from behind him.

Doyle's jaw sagged. He released his hold on his prisoner, and turned just in time to catch the blunt end of a baseball bat on the side of his head. Gwen swore she heard a crack, but then again, it could so easily have been her imagination in the stress and surprise of the moment.

Either way, Doyle dropped at once – knees giving way, back folding – and landed in an untidy pile on the floor. Jack prodded him with one toe in a desultory manner, and then staggered back as Gwen landed on his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck. He recovered, and untangled her as gently as he could.

"Gwen," he said, softly, "Honey? Let's do this later, huh?" She nodded, and released him. He touched her face, briefly, and then turned his attention on the last remaining version of Doyle, who was still holding Tosh in a stranglehold.

"Hi," said Jack, pleasantly. "How's that headache, by the way?"

Doyle seemed, suddenly, extremely disoriented. He shifted his balance slightly, and blinked at Jack over Tosh's shoulder.

"What?" he managed, his voice sounding as if his throat were clogged with phlegm.

"That would be the concussion," Jack went on, apparently oblivious to this. "You were hit on the side of the head with a baseball bat about, oh...an hour ago?" Jack started to tap the bat on the floor, the clicking sound hypnotic.

"You see," he went on, still smiling beatifically, "You forgot that I know how you think, Argentus. You always pick your hired help from the past, not the future. And now I know that _you're _the later one."

That said, he turned to the semi-conscious body on the floor and applied a boot to its ribs. From across the room, Gwen heard Doyle choke back a scream.

"Whoops," said Jack, calmly. "Cracked ribs, too. Sorry. You know, I really can keep this up all day. Now let Tosh go, and I _might _just consider not beating you both unrecognisable."

"That's enough, Jack," said Gwen, almost before she'd thought to speak. She saw him turn towards her, his expression both angry and quizzical. To reinforce her point, she stepped over Doyle's body and stood between him and Jack.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

"He's unconscious. You can't keep hurting him," she insisted. Jack raised both eyebrows at her.

"Excuse me?" he said. "I believe I turned up as he was about to rape you?"

"I don't care," Gwen retorted. "It stops _now_. I'm going to..."

She was interrupted by a single gunshot, and the rest of her words dissolved into a shriek as the blast echoed around the high ceiling, reverberating painfully before dying away at last. She turned on the spot, eyes round with fear, and looked down at her feet. Doyle had pitched face down on the floor, his hand inches from her, a serrated blade dropping from his relaxing fingers. There was a bullet hole punched in his right shoulder.

She heard Tosh sob, just once, and glanced across the floor to where an identical corpse lay, with an identical bullet hole in its back.

Finally, dreamlike, Gwen craned her neck back and saw her other self a few feet away, gun clasped in a hand that suffered only the smallest of shakes. They locked eyes, and Gwen mouthed a voiceless 'thank you' to her double, who nodded briefly.

Jack dropped the baseball bat at last, and moved to curl his arms around her. He took the gun from her unresisting hand and flung it aside.

"It's over," he said.

"I know."

"You shouldn't still be here," he whispered.

"I know."

"I'm glad you are," he breathed.

"Me too," she said, and kissed his cheek. "But I have to go now. Take care of her, Jack. She's more frightened than she'll let you believe. Take care of you, too," she added, her voice sounding, all at once, unutterably distant.

Jack closed his eyes and squeezed her tightly as he dared, but all at once his grasp met no further resistance. There was a sensation of both external and internal pressure, something that popped his ears and his mind as if they were one and the same, and he realised she was gone.

He jumped a little as he felt Gwen slip her hand into his, and he turned to meet her expression. It was an uneasy mixture of horror, relief, bewilderment and gratitude.

"What just happened?" she asked him, her tone faltering. He looked at her face, saw some soft spark fading fast, saw her eyes glazing slightly, and realised that her memory was already changing – which he understood was probably for the best. He planted a chaste kiss on her forehead, from which she recoiled bemusedly, but didn't seem to mind.

"Well..." he began.


	10. Redux

The pulsing whine of the TARDIS filled the dank cell from floor to ceiling.

Almost before it had finished materialising, the door opened, and Doyle staggered out, clutching at his head. He swung around, still groggy, but the Doctor barred his way and planted a palm in his chest, shoving him to the floor.

"Where is this?" he managed, then turned aside and spat lightly on the floor. The Doctor grinned.

"Catalonia, 1937, smack in the middle of the Spanish Civil War," he said, brightly. "You escaped from here about thirty seconds ago. Seems longer, does it?" Doyle paused in the midst of raising himself onto his elbows and froze solid. His eyes widened.

"They were coming to execute me," he said, wanting to shout, but finding his voice weighted down with horror.

"I know. They'll be here any minute," the Doctor told him. "Anyway, must dash, you know how it is. Have fun," he said, and slammed the door.

Doyle launched himself off the floor, galvanised by a speed born of terror, and tried to hammer on the TARDIS. His fingers brushed the wood for one fraction of a second before it faded beneath his touch, leaving the memory of its texture behind.

"_No_," he said. In his mind, it was a shriek. In the enveloping darkness, it came out as a strangled croak. He dropped his head into his hands.

Behind him, the cell door rattled, then creaked open.


End file.
